The New Paranormal

by Jackson Tyler

“I don’t buy into that shit.” There he was, clamming up.

  It was early enough to change tactics. “Neither do I.”

  He raised his needly eyebrows. “Dude, it kind of looks like you do. You don’t have to pretend to be cool. I’m the maintenance guy. I don’t care.” He laughed again.

  The more he talked, the more I understood him. “I’m a fraud,” I explained. “It pays the bills.”

  “For real?”

  “For real.”

  “That’s hilarious.” He extended a fist, and I bumped it with my own. Our camaraderie was established.

  “Yeah, it’s a laugh.”

  “Hey, you know who you could make some money off?” said Lance.

  “Who?” I asked, although I was sure I already knew the answer.

  “Have you met Roman the bellboy?”

  “I have.” I hoped I wasn’t blushing.

  “He’s mad into this sort of bullshit. You could make a fortune off him if you pretended to speak to the ghosts on this floor.”

  I wished. Roman was too smart to fall for my act. “He sounds like a sucker.”

  “Yeah, he is.” Lance chuckled, lifted his fist to his face, and mimed giving a blowjob. He grinned at me. “If you know what I mean.”

  I winced. People said girls were bitchy, but men were just as bad — they were just more likely to throw a punch while they made fun of you. Lance was angling for me to trash talk Roman with him. If I did, I might get Lance to open up, but it made my skin crawl to be complicit in his douchery — especially when I’d been fantasizing about Roman’s sucking skills a lot lately.

  I swallowed my doubt. When had I started caring about feelings more than I cared about getting what I wanted? And I wanted information. Roman wanted me to get information.

  “He’s visited me with ominous warnings a few times.” I rolled my eyes. “What a loser.”

  “You know he’s gay, right?” His nostrils flared and his lip curled.

  “I don’t have a problem with that,” I said quickly. I wouldn’t come out to Lance, but I couldn’t pretend I was a conservative asshole.

  “Just don’t bend over in front of him, right?” Lance laughed again.

  I smiled tightly. I actually liked the idea of bending over in front of Roman, but I had faked straight for survival enough times that I could pretend I didn’t. I always hated playing this game.

  I needed to direct this conversation away from homophobia and back to the Cressley. “Why is he so obsessed with ghosts?” I cringed, bracing myself for what I was going to say next. “Is that a gay thing?”

  “I dunno. I’m not gay, and I don’t believe in ghosts.” His jaw dropped. “Maybe you’re right.”

  Even if I didn’t learn anything about the hotel from Lance, I’d made a straight guy think that ghost hunting was queer culture. That was an accomplishment in its own way.

  “So what is the issue with the plumbing here?” I asked, hoping against hope he had a reasonable answer.

  “The pipes on this floor need to be torn out and replaced with new ones. They’re loud, and some people get creeped out. But management ain’t gonna pay for that.” Lance snorted.

  “There are some weird noises,” I agreed.

  “Yeah, and combine that with all those people who got killed here-”

  “People got killed here?” I feigned shock. “Was it a serial killer?”

  “People get killed everywhere.” Lance shrugged. “Anyway, I should check out your bathroom.”

  Shit. Not yet. I hadn’t had the time to clear out Hannibal’s litter tray.

  “Before you fix anything, I gotta go take a crap,” I said sharply.

  I ducked into the bathroom and quickly closed the door behind me. The room stunk like cat shit. Maybe Lance would assume I had bad bowels, but how was I supposed to hide the large litter tray?

  I gulped. I hoped Lance would focus on the shower, because my only option was to dump everything down the toilet. I dumped all the litter into the bowl and flushed.

  The toilet flooded. I didn’t have a plunger. There was only one thing to do. I pulled up my sleeve and reached through the toilet water. I wrinkled my nose as I fumbled the mushy clay litter, trying to poke it down the pipes. As my hand squished through, I reminded myself this wasn’t the grossest thing I’d ever done. Fishing pennies out of public toilets? That was fucking disgusting. This was highly unpleasant.

  Finally, I managed to loosen the clay with my hands, and it zoomed down the plumbing. Sure, it might cause a blockage further down the line, but that was out of my hands.

  Now there was the matter of where to put the empty litter box. It was too risky to put it in a cupboard — the doors swung open from time to time, probably due to faulty hinges, possibly due to ghosts. I only had one option. I opened the toilet water tank and put the litter tray inside. It only fit at an awkward angle, and the plastic bent as I jammed down the lid. But then I was done, and as long as Lance didn’t look at the toilet, Hannibal and I would stay out of trouble. I flushed the toilet one more time for good measure, then I washed my hands. Thoroughly.

  “All done,” I said as I emerged from the bathroom. I flicked water off my palms and wiped them down on my pants. “It’s the shower that’s messed up, so don’t worry about the toilet.”

  “Don’t worry, my man. I don’t want to go near your toilet after all that flushing.”

  It took everything I had not to sigh in relief.

  Lance seemed to take an eternity in my bathroom. Whatever was wrong with the pipes, it must been difficult to fix. Maybe that was because a plumber couldn’t fix ghost damage. What was happening to me? When did I start believing Roman more than common sense?

  I sat on my bed while I waited for Lance to be done, so edgy that all my muscles clenched like vices around my bones. Hannibal was still hiding under his chair, thank god. He was a smart cat.

  Finally, Lance emerged. “I can’t find anything wrong with your shower,” he said. “It worked fine every time I turned it on.”

  I sighed. “There must be ghosts here after all.” I was only half-kidding. I didn’t like Lance, but I had been hanging my hopes on him finding a logical explanation. Now I was as uncertain as ever.

  Lance laughed. “It’s more likely something is loose in the walls, but unless you want me to cut into them, you might have to suck it up, deal with it, and use your shower when it’s working. That’s what I’d do.”

  “It’s a plan,” I said.

  Lance was reaching out to open the door when someone else knocked on it. I was torn between a dropping stomach and a leaping heart. I knew who must have been on the other side.

  My expectations were proven correct as Lance opened the door, revealing Roman standing behind it.

  “Roman,” he said.

  “I didn’t know you were here, Lance.”

  “It’s my job to be here.” Lance narrowed his eyes at Roman. I could feel the animosity flashing between them. “Why are you here?”

  “I wanted to see Isaac,” said Roman.

  I cringed. Humiliation washed through me.

  Lance narrowed his eyes at me. “I thought you didn’t talk to this guy.”

  The look in Roman’s eyes tugged my heartstrings. But surely he had to know that nothing I said to Lance was true. Lance was means to an end.

  “I already told you I don’t believe in this ghost shit,” I told Roman sharply. I couldn’t raise Lance’s suspicions before I got a drop of information out of him. “Why do you keep coming here?”

  Roman frowned. “I wanted to check that you were okay.”

  “Dude, I’m fine. I don’t need a babysitter.”

  “I’ll leave then.”

  “Good idea,” said Lance. Before Roman had the chance to turn around, Lance shut the door in his face. He turned to me. “What a weirdo.”

  “He’s pretty weird,” I agreed. It was true, but I didn’t mind how weird Roman was. In fact, I enjoyed it. Roman was like no-one else I’d ever met.
“Hey, do you want a beer?”

  I went to get a six-pack out of the tiny mini-fridge before Lance replied. I knew what his answer would be.

  He grinned. “I’m on the clock, but why not? This place is a shithole with or without me.” He took a seat on Hannibal’s chair. I froze in terror, praying Hannibal wouldn’t start hissing or bolt across the room, drawing attention to his existence. He half-opened his orange eyes and glared at me. We both preferred when Roman was the one in that chair.

  “Why do you work in such a crappy place?” I asked. I handed Lance a frosty beer and sat on the bed opposite him.

  He twisted the top off and gulped down a sip before he answered. “It’s a family gig. The real question is why do you live in such a crappy place?”

  “It’s cheap,” I answered honestly. I took a sip of my own beer. Time to play oblivious. “Do your family own the place or something?”

  Lance laughed. “Nah, my dad used to be the maintenance guy here, ever since the 70s. I grew up helping him work here, he trained me up, and now I do the same thing.”

  “You must know a lot about the hotel,” I said. Now the question was: how did I find out what he knew? I took another sip of my beer. “Roman must bug you for information all the time.”

  “Not anymore,” laughed Lance. “I’ve told him where to stick his questions.”

  I eyed up Lance’s beer. He was almost finished. I wasn’t even a quarter of the way through my own.

  “Do you want another drink?” I asked.

  “I like you, Isaac,” said Lance.

  Good start.

  I kept conversation light until Lance was halfway through his fourth beer and I had opened my second. “So what sort of stuff does Roman want to know about you?” I asked, trying to act like it was casual, normal, to bring up these things with handymen.

  “Oh, he cares more my dad than me. Dad found a couple of bodies, and Roman’s convinced he told me all about it.”

  “I guess he didn’t tell you anything.”

  “Of course he did.” Lance laughed and drained the rest of his beer. I winced. That was the last of it. “But I’m not going to tell Roman that.”

  “I guess there’s not anything for you to tell Roman anyway,” I said. “It wasn’t like your dad saw a ghost, right?”

  “Nah, but he had his conspiracy theories about this place.” Lance laughed. “I love my dad, but he wasn’t all there by the end of it.”

  “Your dad’s dead?”

  “He died about ten years ago. Heart attack.”

  “In this place?” My curiosity piqued. Lance’s dad’s heart attack wasn’t on Roman’s list.

  “Nah, he quit after his first stroke.”

  “I’m sorry, dude.”

  “Yeah, whatever.” Lance shrugged. “I don’t know why I’m telling you about my dead dad anyway.”

  Because I was a genius at getting people to open up. My skills might have been rusty, but they were effective. It was time to mine for information.

  “He really had conspiracy theories?” I asked, trying to act like I didn’t care if he gave me an answer or not.

  “Dad thought there was a serial killer here,” said Lance. He rolled his eyes.

  Jackpot. At last. I’d had more of Lance than I could handle. I snickered. “Why’d he think that?”

  “He got dementia. He thought a lot of weird shit.”

  “What sort of shit?” I didn’t want to put too much pressure on Lance, but I was unbelievably close to getting the information I needed. I had to roll with this.

  Luckily the beer was working. Lance didn’t flinch. “He talked a lot about how all of the dead chicks were married and how none of them were wearing rings when they were found. He was convinced that anyone who found the rings would find the killer.”

  “And you think that’s a load of bullshit?”

  “The Cressley is a shitty hotel. People die in places like this all the time.” Lance rubbed his palm over his chin. “People still die here. If a murderer was around in the 80s, he’d be too old to keep it up now.”

  Unless he was killing from beyond the grave. I immediately chastised myself for the thought. I was entertaining Roman’s ridiculous theories. I couldn’t have Lance thinking I was anything other than a chilled-out guest with bad plumbing. I had already pushed my luck enough.

  I got up to go to the fridge again and pretended to be shocked when I opened it. “Aw, man,” I said. I glanced over my shoulder at Lance. “I’m out of beer.”

  “For real?” He drained the dregs of his drink in one sip. “I guess that’s my cue to get back to work.”

  I sighed with relief when he finally left, swinging the door closed behind him. Hannibal poked his head out from under his chair.

  “That took too long,” I said to Hannibal. “I’m sorry.”

  Hannibal leaped onto the bed and curled up in a ball next to me. I stroked a hand down his sleek back, and he squinted his striking eyes happily.

  I took another sip of my beer and looked at my phone. I wasn’t drunk, but my inhibitions were low enough that I didn’t feel too weird about messaging Roman.

  Lance is gone. You can come over now. I considered my emojis carefully. A winky face was okay, but I wasn’t tipsy enough to be so bold as to send an eggplant. Not when it came to Roman.

  I didn’t get a response to my message, but less than five minutes later, there was a knock on my door. Hannibal ran under his chair. I dashed to open it, hoping I would find Roman on the other side.

  “I’m sorry about earlier,” he said as soon as he saw me. “I shouldn’t have come over without warning.”

  “Lance is a jerk.” I shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Did I ruin your interrogation?”

  “No way. I gave him some beer, and he broke like a wafer.” I told Roman all about Lance’s dad’s obsession.

  “That’s interesting,” said Roman. He bit his lower lip and stared at his clasped hands, apparently thinking hard.

  “How come you never noticed all the victims were married?” I asked.

  Roman furrowed his serious brow. “A lot of people who come to the Cressley are married. Unhappily.”

  “Do you think Lance’s dad could have been the killer?” I asked.

  Roman looked at me with scorching eyes. “Explain your reasoning,” he instructed.

  “What if the reason he was so interested in the rings was because he knew they’d incriminate him?”

  Roman stayed silent for a beat too long. My heart raced.

  “If you’re right,” Roman said slowly, “and Lance’s dad was the killer, and he took the victim’s rings from their bodies, why didn’t he hold onto them?”

  “He had dementia. He might have lost them.” And I thought losing my car keys was annoying. Imagine losing your murder trophies.

  Roman dismissed me. “Lance’s dad didn’t die in the Cressley hotel. He couldn’t be haunting it to kill more people.”

  “What if Lance is carrying on his work?” A son inheriting the mantle of ‘murderer’ from his father made a lot more sense than a real serial killer’s ghost in the walls.

  “If Lance was a murderer, why would he have talked to you?”

  Roman had a good point.

  “Um…” I started, hoping inspiration would strike. It didn’t.

  “I understand your logic,” said Roman. “Lance’s dad worked here from 1975 to 2000. There was a six year gap where no one died here from 2000 to 2006. I understand why you jumped to this conclusion, but Lance isn’t smart enough to get away with murder.”

  I sighed. Roman was right. “What would a ghost do with a wedding ring?” I asked.

  “That’s an excellent question. All I know is that if we find those rings, we might find the killer.”

  “Ghost or otherwise,” I said.

  Roman glared at me. He wouldn’t entertain the idea of otherwise.

  “Anyway, why did you stop by earlier?” I asked. I was tired of talking about g
hosts.

  Roman lowered himself into the chair. The differences between him and Lance in that chair were striking. Even sitting, Roman had a commanding presence that made me weak at the knees. His hands were clasped, his legs spread in a wide firm stance. “I told you already. I wanted to check you were safe.”

  Hot. I had appropriate inhibitions around Roman, but the beer had made my private thoughts impossible to filter. Roman’s protective, bodyguard-style thing was turning me on.

  “Why wouldn’t I be safe?” I said. “Lance is a jerk, but he’s not dangerous.”

  Roman glared at me. “Because of the ghosts, Isaac. If you want to work with me, please take this seriously.”

  “If you want to work with me, please accept that I am not going to be able to take this seriously.” It was much easier to make jokes than it was to accept the truth: I was starting to wonder if the Cressley Hotel was haunted.

  Chapter Ten

  Roman

  Sometimes, I hated my job. I wished I could spend all my time hunting ghosts, but that didn’t pay, so I had to follow Ben’s orders. He’d been especially harsh over this past week.

  Lance, rat that he was, had told Ben about me knocking on Isaac’s door a week ago. Ever since then, Ben had gone on and on about this me harassing the guests thing. To cap it off, Kyle had been sick for the last five days, which meant I had more Ben than usual to contend with.

  I ignored everything he said about staying away from the thirteenth floor and visited Isaac every chance I got. Isaac didn’t seem to mind, and as long as he didn’t complain, neither could Ben.

  I had begun to look forward to my breaks in room 1405. I stepped out of the elevator with a spring in my step.

  It was always cold on the thirteenth floor, but it was freezing today. I tensed my muscles, ready to launch myself into action. Something was here. A presence, and an unfriendly one at that. I was on high alert. I scanned the hallway quickly with my EMF meter. The readings were significantly higher than usual. There was danger in the air tonight.

  I had raised my fist to knock on Isaac’s door when I heard a shout that turned into a scream coming from the stairwell right outside his room.

  I leaped into action. Bodies had been found in that stairwell before. I breathed deeply as I jogged down the stairs, two at a time. What if it had been Isaac who screamed?